Governor Makes Pitch For Special Session On Jobs

Mark Pazniokas

©The Connecticut Mirror

Thursday was a crucial day for the administration of Governor Dannel P. Malloy, with results expected from a second ratification vote on a labor concession deal. But in talks with legislative leaders, Malloy already is looking ahead, trying to lay the groundwork for a partisanship-free special session on jobs.

The Democratic administration has talked with Republican and Democratic legislative leaders this week in an effort to make the upcoming General Assembly special session a bipartisan opportunity to brand Connecticut’s political establishment as united on economic development.

“Nobody has disagreed with the concept: A demonstration of a nonpartisan commitment to growing Connecticut’s economy,” said Timothy Bannon, the governor’s chief of staff.

With strong Democratic majorities in both chambers, Malloy could pass an economic development package on a party-line vote, as was the case with his budget and other issues during the regular session. In fact, the GOP minority ended the session feeling marginalized.

But Senate Minority Leader John P. McKinney, R-Fairfield, said he believes that Republicans are open to the administration’s overtures about the importance of showing business a government united on job creation.

“I think there is a lot of common ground,” McKinney said. “Also, I am of the belief that we need to stop fighting as Republicans and Democrats, especially in light of what’s happening in Washington. I think there’s been a higher level of disgust with government, and what happens in Washington has an impact on us as well.”

Early this year, McKinney and House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr, R-Norwalk, welcomed Malloy as a pragmatic, moderate Democrat whom they knew well as the mayor of Fairfield County’s largest city, Stamford. They applauded his commitment to end the state’s practice of papering over deficits.

But any hope of a working relationship on the budget ended when Malloy proposed a $1.5 billion tax increase as a major element of his plan to erase an inherited deficit of more than $3 billion. Malloy’s budget passed without a single GOP vote.

And they bitterly fought him over the passage of the first state mandate in the nation on some businesses to provide paid sick days.

McKinney said he does not believe the special session on jobs should be a rehash of battles fought in the regular session that ended in June.

(A longer version of this story originally appeared at CTMirror.org, the website of The Connecticut Mirror, an independent, nonprofit news organization covering government, politics, and public policy in the state.)